ALESSANDRO RINALDI
DMAV_social art ensemble
Borders in free fall – the evolution in the work of Davide Grazioli –

“At the beginning, it was the journey that guided Davide Grazioli’s work. And as so often happens, the journey soon brought along the themes of the Other and the Elsewhere. An early encounter with the painter Aldo Mondino (Torino, 1938-2005), to whom Grazioli became assistant and with whom he went on the first painting trip to India, was also crucial. “Mondino has always portrayed a fantastical Orient as a dreamlike and magical elsewhere,” the artist recalls, “but soonafter… [ continues ]

VALERIO DEHO’art critic

“Most contemporary images, videos, paintings, plastic arts, audiovisuals, image syntheses, are literally images in which there is nothing to see, images without trace, without shadow, without consequences. What we perceive is that behind each of these something has disappeared. These images hide nothing, and reveal nothing” – Jean Baudrillard, The transparency of evil, Sugarco, 1991… [ continues ]

“AZ > Conceptually and linguistically you have been called a “nomadic artist”, a quality which not by chance is reflected in your frequent travels between East and West, preferring destinations such as Asia and India. This cultural nomadism, so dear to the Eighties, intertwines life and art, but it remains to be seen whether you are more cosmopolitan or more stateless. I am asking you this because at times you have declared that you wanted to << forget your European roots>> and because I find the title of one of your works in 2003 significant: Spogliarsi dell’identità (Stripping oneself of one’s identity). Are we talking about drifting and landing places, loss and discovery – rather than about recovery? – of identity, between individuality and community. [ continues ]

VITTORIA COENart critic and curator

“The educative journey of the romantic young man has always existed, like the rich American family’s young son’s educational trip in Europe, like the pilgrim’s travel, the missionary journey, the travel of the salesman, of the geographer, of the adventurer. Each of these journeys could be a going towards something, an escaping from, a gesture of despair or of enthusiasm, a trip to hell, an Odyssey among the sirens, decadent seductions, oriental symbolisms, hallucinations, the myth of Haiti for the painter Gauguin; an immeasurable variety. Yet, inside this variety, some exemplary lines can be found… [ continues ]

ASHRAFI S. BHAGATart critic and journalist – Art India, The Hindu –

“Davide Grazioli divides his time between Asia and Europe, taking note of the delicate ties that bind the peoples of East and West as well as the wide gulfs that divide them. The artist enjoys associating travel with transcendental experiences, the dwindling of an individual’s identity until it merges into a greater whole. Travel is thus represented as a modern form of meditation, another way to leave behind your individual identity and enter a territory in which the conscience is allowed greater freedom from its conditioning and is able to absorb the experience of people who seem distant at first sight (thereby crossing what Hermann Hesse called magical bridges). Travel, therefore, is like an act … [ continues ]